Florida State’s Wes Mendes has added another major honor to a season already packed with them, earning ACC Scholar-Athlete of the Year for baseball.
Mendes, the Seminoles’ ace, is the seventh player in program history to win the award and the second in the last three years. He joins James Tibbs III, who was recognized in 2024, as an honoree under fourth-year head coach Link Jarrett.
The accolades have piled up for Mendes all spring. He collected five All-America honors, was named ACC Pitcher of the Year, and became an All-American on D1Baseball’s First Team for the first time in his career.
The Tampa native also picked up ABCA Southeast All-Region First Team, CSC Academic All-District Team and All-ACC First Team honors, while also serving as a Dick Howser Trophy and National Pitcher of the Year semifinalist. He was named ACC Pitcher of the Week twice and earned multiple National Team of the Week honors.
On the mound, Mendes was one of the nation’s most dominant arms in 2026. He finished with 125 strikeouts, which ranked No. 13 nationally and No. 1 in the ACC, along with a 1.02 WHIP, two complete games, nine wins and 16 starts. He also placed second in the conference with a 2.81 ERA and ranked No. 3 in hits allowed per nine innings and strikeouts per nine innings, plus No. 4 in strikeout-to-walk ratio.
In ACC play, Mendes led the league with 62.1 innings pitched and 79 strikeouts. He also ranked among the conference’s top 10 in fewest home runs allowed, ERA, opponent batting average, wins and fewest walks allowed. Overall, he went 9-3, led Florida State with 93.0 innings pitched and held opponents to a .207 batting average.
His work helped fuel another strong season for Florida State. The Seminoles went 40-19 in 2026, reached 40 wins for the third straight year after going without a 40-win season from 2020-23, and finished third in the ACC with a 19-11 conference mark and eight series wins.
Both of those totals were the best since 2014 outside of the extended 2021 season. Florida State also made its 62nd NCAA appearance, second-most all-time, and hosted an NCAA Regional for the 38th time, the most in the country.
The Seminoles are one of three teams to host a regional in each of the last three years.
Mendes, a social science major, posted a 4.00 GPA during the spring 2026 semester and earned All-ACC Academic Team recognition in both of his seasons at Florida State.
Florida State also placed 11 softball players on the Academic All-ACC team: Ashtyn Danley, Bella Dimitrijevic, Jazzy Francik, Madi Frey, Hayley Griggs, Kennedy Harp, Marin Heller, Anna Hinde, Shelby McKenzie, Bella Ruggiero and Makenna Sturgis.
To qualify, student-athletes needed a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better. Francik and Hinde led the group with 4.00 GPAs during the 2025-26 season, and 10 of the 11 Noles finished at 3.50 or higher.
The softball team matched its classroom success with a decorated year on the field, winning its 19th ACC Regular Season Championship at 21-3 and then claiming its 20th ACC Tournament Championship with victories over Georgia Tech, Stanford and Virginia Tech. Florida State finished the 2026 season at 52-10.
Jalen Ramsey also made headlines after speaking to a group of Colorado football players at a leadership retreat. He said that if Deion Sanders had been coaching when he was in school, he would not have chosen Florida State, adding:
“Take advantage of everything Coach Prime and his staff are giving you because it ain’t normal…if this was an opportunity for me, there would have been no Florida State. I probably would have never thought about Colorado, but that is where I would have gone.”
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Florida State Just Drew A 2026 Path Fans Will Hate
Florida States path in 2026 is already looking unforgiving, and the early buzz around it has not been kind to the Seminoles. On3 pegged the schedule as the toughest in the ACC, a label that makes sense when you look at the lineup coming down the road: Alabama, Florida, Clemson, Miami and several other programs that rarely offer much breathing room.
The timing only adds to the pressure. Florida State gets just one tune-up before diving into conference play, then heads to Alabama in Week 3, a sequence that can punish even a good team if it is not ready right away. After consecutive losing seasons, the Seminoles do not have much margin left, which is why this feels less like a normal schedule release and more like an early test of whether the program can handle another prove-it year. [Read more 🡒]